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Early Snow

Early Snow

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There are still leaves on the trees, but that isn’t stopping the snow from falling. What was first billed as sleet and freezing rain has turned into snow that’s sticking on deck and railing, yard and street.

Roads, mostly untreated, are slick and getting slicker.

It will turn to rain later, they say. They being the Capital Weather Gang, my go-to weather source.  But they also said there wouldn’t be much accumulation, so I’m not believing them at the moment.

What I am believing is what I see from the warm confines of my living room. The snow is falling, and there may be a little sleet mixed in because it’s making a sound when it hits the ground. No silent snow, secret snow here. It’s early snow, loud snow.

Mellow Sunshine

Mellow Sunshine

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Over the weekend, as D.C. reeled from yet another emotional and divisive week, the weather gave us a gift: days of mellow sunshine and low humidity, scant clouds. Not Indian Summer, not yet, because we haven’t had a frost. More like the early September days we hoped for but didn’t receive.

There’s a thinness in the air this time of year that allows us to enjoy the warmth, not dread it.  I remember feeling this thinness while doing homework in early September during grammar school. Sitting on the front stoop, wearing my green-and-gray-plaid uniform and a too-tight pair of saddle shoes or penny loafers, still in love with my cartridge pen with peacock blue ink.

Somehow, those memories are all mixed up with the feel of the September air, not quite fall but not quite summer, either. A glorious in-between time.

That’s what we had this weekend, even though we’ve just entered October, what we’re promised through the week. If you listen closely you’ll hear a collective sigh of gratitude.

Fall Wish List

Fall Wish List

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On this first day of fall, I wish for …

Blue skies,

Brilliant fall foliage,

And a crispness to the air,

Which is more difficult to picture, but which means …

It needs to stop raining for a while!

Cloudy

Cloudy

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Cloudy, the sky is gray and white and cloudy
sometimes I think it’s hanging down on me.

So begins a Simon and Garfunkel tune that was one of my favorites back in the day. It was an upbeat accompaniment to teenage angst:

Cloudy, my thoughts are scattered and they’re cloudy.
They have no borders, no boundaries.
They echo and they swell
From Tolstoy to Tinkerbell,
Down from Berkeley to Carmel,
Got some pictures in my pocket and a lot of time to kill…

It wasn’t until I left home for college and work that I realized I’d grown up in one of the cloudier areas of the country — the Ohio River Valley. Then I moved to northern Virginia and realized how sunny one’s days could be.

That was, until this summer …

But … we just broke a 10-day cloudy streak that began to ease up the late Tuesday afternoon and came to full fruition yesterday.

How sweet it was to sit on the deck, to walk without the umbrella, to feel the warmth of the sun on my face. It was like a tonic.

Hey, sunshine, I haven’t seen you in a long time
Why don’t you show your face and bend my mind.

My mind has been properly bent.

Post Florence

Post Florence

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The hurricane we’d been hearing about for a week finally made its way to northern Virginia today. And from what I’ve seen of its tatters I’m thankful we were spared its brunt.

The rain fell with tropical fullness and vigor, thin, plentiful sheets of it. Rain that blew in from the south, gathered from a warm ocean and spewed back onto land. Rain that made puddles on the sidewalk and street, twin fins of water spraying up from the cars.

Has it rained every day for the last three months?  No, of course not.  It only seems like it has. Last weekend was actually drier than predicted. And our totals from Florence will be measured in inches not feet.

But a few days from now, when the Equinox happens , we’ll say goodbye to a summer that’s been the rainiest in memory. We met our yearly totals a month ago!

As I write these words the dehumidifier hums beside me. It’s on overdrive these days.

(Rain from Florence streams down a bus window.) 

Category 6?

Category 6?

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Hurricane Florence is so large and so strong and intensified so quickly that experts are wondering if ultimately there might need to be a Category 6 for hurricanes.

Apparently, other hurricanes have also been strengthening rapidly, and this has stimulated research that shows how fast they’ll blow up 50 or more years from now.

Not to take away an ounce of concern for the people of South Carolina and North Carolina and all the states (including Virginia) that will be affected by this monster storm. Weather patterns are changing.

But … it seems is that every storm is now the “Storm of the Century.” Which means that hurricane coverage has already jumped to a Category 6!

(Photo: NASA)

ISO Blue Skies

ISO Blue Skies

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You know you’ve had a soggy summer when some of your best weather days have happened in Ireland! After a downpour Friday night, mist and spray Saturday and rain all day yesterday, I’m remembering the blue skies of the Emerald Isle.

As I walked into the office building this morning, I noticed the squeaking of my tennis shoes on the polished floor. That and “squish-squish” have become the soundtrack of our rainy days. The umbrella that I keep in my bag for emergency showers has been pressed into service more times than I can count.

And with a hurricane barreling toward the East Coast this may just the beginning of our wet weather woes.

For now, I’m going to think dry thoughts  — not sure exactly what those are … but I’ll come up with some.

(St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin. Not a cloud in the sky.)

Smile Lines

Smile Lines

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It’s the last day of a soggy July, and I’m reminding myself that if we have to have extreme weather, better excess moisture than excess heat. People in northern California wouldn’t mind some rain about now, as they struggle with temps of 110 and a fire so intense that it’s creating its own winds and tornadoes.

Compared with that, I can easily find something nice to say about the frequent showers and thundershowers, the coziness they impart on a rainy Saturday afternoon. How they nurture the young trees we planted this spring. How little watering there is to do.

Of course, if I really could choose, I’d prefer ample rains that fall at night and leave the days sunny and clear. But since I can’t, I’m remembering lines from a Robert Frost poem about reconciling the choices we can’t make. They always make me smile.

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if I had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Sea Legs

Sea Legs

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After days inside, a body longs to be outdoors. So this body made its way to the deck as dawn was breaking, lured the little doggie outside, too. I found a seat cushion that wasn’t totally saturated, and sat down on one of the wrought-iron chairs.

Before I could type a word, a drop of water plopped on my screen. Another morning shower — or the bamboo shaking off its excess? I chose the latter. Not that it’s up to me, of course, but at that point in the day the morning still seemed up for grabs. I wouldn’t go inside, not yet.

I sit and watch Copper, who’s sticking his head between the deck railings and screwing up his courage. A few minutes later he’s trotted down the stairs into the sodden yard.

The two of us have sea legs. The dry world is new to us. But we’ll get the hang of it; I know we will.

The Deluge

The Deluge

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Woke up this morning to a deluge, to the tapping of drops on leaves, the plopping of water on roof, to the gurgle of rain through the downspouts. It will rain several inches today — this on top of yesterday’s sporadic downpours, the record-breaking six inches on Saturday and Sunday’s showers (most of which I blessedly missed).

This is one heck of a weather system. The ground is sodden, the impatiens are drowned (one of the flower pots holds water) and the yard is squishy soft. Copper refuses to go out of his own accord and must be lured with leash and walk.

Rain like this just doesn’t happen in July. It’s a confluence of many factors, said the weather guys. A winter-like storm, almost a nor’easter churning up the coast, then parking itself over the mid-Atlantic and not budging for hours. (That was Saturday.)

All I know is that the rain hasn’t ended yet. Downpours are expected through Wednesday.

I’m glad I stored up some Florida sunshine in my psychic account; I’ll be drawing on it this week!

(I like my clouds fluffy and white, thank you very much.)